Special Opinion, sent in anonymously by A Friend.
From Aristotle’s Politics, (translated from the Greek by Spencer Klavan, (JUNE 22, 2018). https://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/aristotle-build-the-wall/
“[A] peculiarly relevant passage about whether a city-state should build a “beautiful” wall to keep out invaders.”
“Some people say city-states that are trying for virtue shouldn’t have walls, but those people’s beliefs are out-of-date — they can see proof of that for themselves by looking at what happens to other city-states that put on that kind of display. True enough: when your enemies are evenly matched and similar in number, it’s not the best thing to rely on the strength of your walls for safety. But sometimes there are just too many attackers for human beings to fight back with virtue alone. And so if we want to be safe from disaster and embarrassment, we have to make up our minds that the best thing for war is to have the strongest, most secure walls — especially with all the new discoveries in weapons and technology that make siege warfare so much more accurate. Asking city-states not to put up walls is like trying to make your territory an easy target by flattening all its hilly terrain, or like not even putting up walls around private citizens’ houses because you think the people who live there will become cowards. And we shouldn’t forget: city-states that put up walls can use them in two ways — they can act as if they had walls, and as if they didn’t. City-states without walls can’t do that. So in fact people shouldn’t just put up walls around their city states: they should also work hard to make sure that those walls are as beautiful as the city-state deserves, and that they meet every military need — the old ones and the latest ones. Attackers work hard to find out how they can gain the upper hand, and defenders should work just has hard at defense — they should use state-of-the-art inventions; and they should study and try to invent new technology of their own. After all, people don’t even try to attack opponents who are well prepared to begin with.”
About the Author
Outstanding!
Having studied Greek history, I am familiar with the “Long Walls” of Athens which were built after Xerxes’ invasion of Greece (480-479).
Their construction was proposed by Themistocles, but the actual building started in 461 B.C., when Athens was at war with Sparta in the First Peloponnesian War.
The proposal to execute the old plan was made by Cimon.
The western wall connected the southwest of Athens to its port Piraeus and was about six kilometers long or 3.72823 miles.
The eastern wall continued from the south of the city to another port, Phaleron, which was about 5½ kilometer away.
Between the two walls, a large triangle of land could be used for agriculture.
The walls were finished in 457, although Pericles would later take the initiative for doubling the western wall (445-443 B.C.).
The Long Walls enabled Athens to survive any siege.
As long as it was connected to its ports and controlled the sea, no enemy could capture the city.
During the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.), the Athenians simply evacuated the countryside, left it to the Spartans, and lived in Athens itself, which could receive supplies from across the sea.
However, when the Athenian fleet was defeated at the Aigospotamoi (405 B.C.), the food supply was imperiled, and Athens had to surrender.
One of the main demands of the Spartans was the destruction of the hated Long Walls.
According to Xenophon, the enemies of Athens “tore them down among scenes of great joy and to the music of flute girls”.note
Ten years later, the Athenians had recovered, and at the beginning of the Corinthian War (395-386), in which they took up arms against the Spartans again, their general Conon rebuilt the Long Walls.
The Long Walls were still standing at the beginning of the first century BCE.
During the First Mithridatic War, in 86 to be precise, Athens was besieged by the Roman general Sulla.
After he had destroyed the Long Walls, probably with catapults, he was able to isolate Athens from Piraeus.
In the end, Athens and it port had to surrender.
The “Great Wall” of China probably would have been a better “wall” to study, if you want to keep out barbarian hoardes.
But that was then and this is now, and as Arlo Guthrie made real clear all the way back in the sixties with his famous song “Coming Into Los Angeles” – Coming in from London, from over the pole, Flyin’ in a big airliner, Comin’ into Los Angeles, Bringin’ in a couple of keys, Don’t touch my bags if you please, mister customs man – this is a different age now, and the United States of America is not ancient Greece.
According to an azcentral article entitled “Meth, cocaine, heroin: Most gets smuggled through ports of entry. A wall won’t stop it.” by Rafael Carranza, Arizona Republic, published Jan. 8, 2019,
data from our government repeatedly show that a rising number of smuggled drugs, especially more potent ones like heroin and cocaine, are increasingly seized at legal ports of entry, which are not impacted by a wall.
According to the latest data available, customs officers staffing the ports seized far greater quantities of hard drugs, such as methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and fentanyl, which are not only more potent and deadly, but are also smuggled in smaller quantities.
Customs agents seized more than 67,000 pounds of methamphetamine smuggled through the ports of entry.
Customs officers at the ports also seized far greater numbers of cocaine, heroin and fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While border agents seized 332 pounds of the deadly opioid, customs officers at the ports seized 1,357 pounds during that same time.
Historical data also shows that the amounts of drugs smuggled in between the ports of entry, where a wall might make a difference, is on the decrease.
The total number of marijuana seized in 2017, the last full year of data available, is almost a third of what it was in in 2012.
On the other hand, the smuggling of hard drugs is on the rise at ports of entry, with notable increases in the past five years, according to Customs and Border Protection.
So who or what is the wall going to keep out?
Certainly not Arlo and his couple of keys, anyway.
As to all the hard drugs coming through the legal ports of entry that are presently confiscated by Customs, which robs profits from the drug traffickers, Democratic Socialist rising superstar AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) has the solution for that – do away with Customs and let the drugs roll through.
And the wall won’t be needed, either, because the Democrats want to do away with prosecuting (harassing as they call it) illegals coming across the border.
Their solution, as was the case back when the Persians were invading Greece, is to simply surrender.
This statement about “(A)sking city-states not to put up walls is like trying to make your territory an easy target by flattening all its hilly terrain, or like not even putting up walls around private citizens’ houses because you think the people who live there will become cowards” reminds me of the time I spent out in “LEADER” Pelosi’s city by the bay where gated and walled communities to keep the riff-raff away from the rich folks, who may well be cowards, abound.
“FACEBOOK” Zuckerberg, who may be a coward, is big on walls around his property to keep his precious self safe from the regular people in the world who aren’t precious and special like he is.
“CHAIR” Yellen, aka “Toodles,” who used to head up the federal reserve lives in a gated exclusive community where the riff-raff aren’t allowed, except perhaps as servants.
And “LEADER” Pelosi, who says walls aren’t effective, herself lived in an exclusive gated community in San Francisco with security guards at the gate to keep out the riff-raff.
But we know “LEADER” Pelosi is a coward, so it is not surprising to find her hiding behind walls.
And yes, we do need a wall, a real thick one, a soundproof one, and a real high one topped with broken glass and barbed wire that will be 40 miles long around that pestilential ****hole of Washington, D.C. to seal those idiots down there in so maybe we can finally have some peace back in our lives!